The night was quiet—so still it almost bored him to death.
Alex sat alone in his small, dimly lit room, surrounded by pale walls and the cold glow of his phone screen reflecting off his tired face. The place was a mess: scattered books, a cup of stale coffee, and worn-out curtains that let the moonlight slip shyly through their torn seams.
He had no idea that this ordinary, uneventful moment would soon turn into a nightmare he would never forget.
As he scrolled absentmindedly through his phone, a sudden flash of blinding white light filled the room—so intense it felt as if the sun itself had exploded at midnight.
Alex froze, eyes wide, blinking rapidly as the radiance swallowed every shadow. Before he could react, a swirling circle of energy materialized in the air before him. It spun with impossible speed, sparks of blue and gray lightning bursting from its edges, coiling and folding in on themselves like compressed thunder.
"What… what's happening?"
He could barely comprehend what he was seeing.
The portal opened before him like a living eye from another world, its center pulsing—breathing—like the heart of something alive, drawing in the light from everywhere around. Then, before he could think or move, he felt it: a pull, fierce and inescapable. The air itself had turned into a vortex, grabbing his body and dragging him into its hungry core.
Alex screamed, clutching at the edge of his bed, but the world dissolved around him. The walls, the floor, even his voice—everything was swallowed by a roaring storm that seemed to come from inside the fabric of reality itself.
Pain exploded through him, not on his skin but within his very cells. It was as though his body was being rewritten, piece by piece, by some cosmic hand. The agony was unbearable… and then it was gone.
He fell out of nothingness, slamming into hard earth.
Dust flew around him as he rolled, coughing, his chest heaving in ragged bursts. His skin was slick with sweat and dirt. For a long moment, he just lay there, gasping, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
When he finally lifted his head, the sight before him froze his breath.
He wasn't in his room. Not even close.
The building he found himself in was abandoned—cracked walls, shattered windows, furniture reduced to splinters and rust. Everything was washed in shades of gray, as if the world had been drained of color itself. Dust clung thickly to every surface, and the air smelled of old iron and forgotten years.
"Where am I? What the hell is this place…?"
Moonlight slipped through a broken window, glimmering against the drifting dust. For a moment, the whole room shimmered in a dim, silver haze. A chill crawled up Alex's spine.
He wasn't just somewhere else—he was in another world.
A sudden, piercing pain stabbed through his skull.
He clutched his head, biting back a scream, feeling as though a blade was carving into his brain. Then came the flood—images, formulas, incomprehensible sounds, words that didn't belong to any human tongue.
Flashes of energy patterns. Equations of light.
Words burned themselves into his consciousness—Mana, Primal Adaptation, Spiritual Framework.
Information poured into him at a terrifying speed, until he felt his balance slipping.
The portal hadn't just moved him—it had changed him.
His breathing quickened. The world around him shimmered, and he began to see faint threads of light in the air—currents of something invisible to the naked eye.
He realized that this wasn't a random accident. Or… maybe it was. He didn't know. But deep down, he felt it—whatever had happened to him, it was something beyond comprehension.
Then came the voice in his head, repeating one phrase again and again—his True Name.
What was it? Why did it feel both alien and familiar, like a part of him he'd always had but never noticed until now?
He could feel the mana flowing through his body.
The sensation was surreal—like soaking in warm water on a cold winter night. Strength pulsed through his veins, filling him with vitality he had never known before.
"I feel like… I could break that wall with my bare hands."
A wave of euphoria washed over him. He took several deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down, scanning the room with renewed focus.
"Alright… wherever I am, this doesn't look like Earth. But someone—something—built this place. The architecture is too human to be alien."
Alex's instincts kicked in. He was adaptable by nature, and right now, that might be the only thing keeping him alive.
He analyzed everything—the air, the silence, the lingering tension. The place felt wrong. Too quiet. Too still.
"Okay then… let's see what this 'True Name' really means."
He sat cross-legged on the floor, closed his eyes, and tried to relax, letting the flood of information in his mind settle into patterns he could read. It felt like transferring data onto a hard drive—only this drive was his brain.
Minutes passed. When he opened his eyes again, the room hadn't changed. Dust still blanketed the air; the moon still hung pale and distant.
"I understand now…"
Shock rippled through him as the truth unfolded.
In this world—this strange, mana-rich reality—every living being possessed a True Name, a spiritual signature that defined who they were and what they could become.
Each name was unique, tied to the very core of its bearer. It granted power—different powers for each soul. No two were ever the same.
To awaken that name, one needed mana.
And judging by how much he could now sense in the air around him, this entire world was overflowing with it.
"My name has three parts… but why do I have to activate it first? Isn't falling through a cosmic portal enough of an activation?"
He couldn't help a bitter laugh. Even after awakening his True Name, he couldn't use it yet—not until it was fully manifested.
Still, something told him it wouldn't be too hard.
"Three aspects… Fragmentation of the Soul, Cultivation of the Soul, Manifestation of the Soul. I don't know what any of that means—but I'll find out. And I'd better do it soon, because this place doesn't feel safe."
A faint, distant scream echoed through the night. Not human.
He turned toward the shattered window, and his stomach tightened. Beyond the ruins stretched a vast forest, its shadows moving under the silver light.
"If every creature here has mana… then they all have True Names too. Which means—everything in this world could be dangerous."
He clenched his fists, determination flickering in his eyes.
"I need to activate mine. Fast."